


Haunted

by orphan_account



Series: Violetescence [6]
Category: Homestuck, House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Development, Gen, Hearing Voices, Insanity, Lovecraftian, Parent Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-23
Updated: 2011-02-23
Packaged: 2017-10-15 21:48:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/165253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And I'm haunted<br/>By the lives that I have loved<br/>And actions I have hated<br/>I'm  haunted<br/>By the lives that wove the web<br/>Inside my haunted head</p><p>(In an alternate universe, David Lalonde comes to terms with his mother's death)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Haunted

“ _Mother!_ ”

He wakes with a start, knocking over the small crystals that the alligators have surrounded him with. They scatter in a flurry of naks, retreating to the corners of the tent. A stiff breeze tugs at the tent flap, blowing dust onto the canvas floor.

He frowns. There has never been wind here before. The Denizen is not yet defeated, so why would the air move?

He puts on his armor and pulls on his cloak and gloves, buckling his shield to his left arm. He adjusts the various holding straps and pauses to reach over to a shivering alligator and gently lift his wearable off of its head.

“For the last time, I won’t hurt you,” he says. “A little property destruction hardy equates to wanton violence committed against the persons of your species.”

It’s quite clear that the alligators do not believe him. Indeed, they scatter out of the tent. He wonders what it is. He can understand their fear - he did, after all, completely destroy several sacred landmarks in his search for answers, and his shadow does writhe and stick to things, and when he is exceptionally angry his eyes have a habit of turning black.

What perplexes him more is how they still seem to follow him. How they plant glowing crystals around his body while he sleeps. He thought at first it was to contain his shadow, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. It is as though they are keeping vigil.

 _Mother._ The word will not leave him alone, and he clings to the whispers of the Furthest Ring like so many cobwebs. Mother. Unlike Jade or John he does not have the luxury of clouds to simply show him; he relies on whispers and sound.

But the sounds disturb him. A wet crunch. Droplets hitting cloth. No screams, and yet...

Surely it cannot be. Besides, it’d be in the future. He supposes he could ask one of the trolls, but he’s never certain where or when on the timeline he finds them, and they’d said before that tracking his mother was hard. Not as hard as Jade’s brother (oh god, poor Jade) but difficult...

“This is pointless.”

He walks outside into the harsh sunlight and across the sand. The breeze rises again, teasing his cloak, then falls, going perfectly still. He frowns, slightly.

Well. One person will know.

 ** > Be the other person **

Rose Egbert stares at her crystal, shaking, her hands over her mouth. No matter how many times she says no, that doesn’t seem to change a thing. She does not simply see it in the glass, she hears it on the breeze, she feels it in her blood. She hovers above the ground and the wind whips fitfully, trying to unsee it, trying to see something else, anything else. This is worse when she wasn’t able to see Jade, at least then she knew it was alright (Eridan has said so, and Eridan surely wouldn’t lie)

Someone is pestering her.

\-- tortileGhostwriter [TG] began pestering talentedThaumaturge [TT]\--   
  
TG: rose  
TG: i have a question   
TT: Oh god oh god no no no no no no no -    
TG: rose what  
TG: now is certainly not the time to be doing a shia la boef impression  
TG: come now i thought you were more literary minded  
TG: turn to page twenty six wherein rose explains what is going on   
TT: They’re dead.   
TG:  
TG:  
TG: well yes lots of people are dead  
TG: i mean you are technically dead and so is jade and john too and indeed i believe a number of the trolls as well  
TG: so clearly death is not so terrible a thing around these parts  
TG: indeed it seems quite cheap  
TG: perhaps akin to those fluted plexiglass wine glasses  
TG: not in fact crystal  
TG: easily purchased from pier one to enliven an otherwise dreary and poor household  
TG: the point being that i do sincerely hope that you are simply experiencing a minor glitch due to your newfound ability to hear the air  
TG: because if you are confirming my suspicions i am not sure how much longer i will be able to maintain my cool  
TG: clearly you cannot mean who i think you mean  
TG: clearly everything is fine  
TG: everything is fine and nothing is ruined   
TT: David shut the fuck up.   
TG:    
TT: Stop. Just. Stop with the pretentious jerk thing. God please just for once.  
TT: … I’m sorry, I just. Oh god. No. They’re dead Dave, they’re dead, and I don’t know what to do.  
TT: Dad’s dead and I can’t  
TT: And Kan messaged me and she was worried about something, something about Feferi and Captor and Gamzee, I don’t know, but when I tried to get her again she was back to yelling at me, and then Karkat doesn’t seem well either, and no it. I.  
TT: Fuck.  
TT: Just leave me alone. Please. Later. I’m sorry.   


\-- tortileGhostwriter [TG] is now an idle chum -- 

** > David: Regret turning to page 26. **

He admitted that he’d gone too far when he’d said that, but that thought disappeared the moment she said they were dead.

He stares into space, his eyes unfocusing. He sinks to the sand and wraps his arms around his knees and shakes.

 _My mother is dead._

He thinks of every time he rejected a gift, every time he passed it off as a condescending tease. He remembers each time he chomped at the bit, each time she held him back, held his hair, stroked his head. He remembers each screaming fight, each time he knocked over statues and yelled at her to leave, and each time he waited at the window for her to return from wherever she’d gone, to walk back through the door with a new exotic trinket from some far flung corner of the world. He remembers her wobbles, her slurred speech and helping her up the stairs and hating her every moment and he remembers her by his side, pushing his sweat soaked hair back from his brow and feeding him chicken soup (from a can, she couldn’t cook if she tried).

“I shouldn’t...”

We see here a rare moment of vulnerability as David contemplates his mother’s demise. He curls up into a fetal position; gone is the strong young warrior and at once we are reminded that he is, in fact, only a thirteen year old boy.  


This scene, however, is problematic when taken in view of the whole work. Up until this point David’s relationship with his mother has been shown to be explicitly antagonistic. The mother, never named, is an alcoholic career woman, leaving young David home alone with no one to care for him. When she was not being casually neglectful, she was drunk; and when she was not drunk she would tease him with gifts calculated precisely to appear condescending and coddling. David himself before only reacted to her presence with hostility.

One wonders why the author would have chosen to show any connection now, of all times. The scene, as a whole, feels out of place, a misguided attempt to show David’s humanity, a ham-handed Hallmark moment in an otherwise solid narrat

“Shut. Up. ”

He looks up slowly, his eyes full of rage; for once red-rimmed instead of black. He drags a hand across his tear-stained cheeks and glowers into the middle distance.

Dearest David;  


In your last letter you seemed so sad, but I cannot fathom why! You have only one mother, and you’ll only ever need one mother. There’s no need for tears. You barely knew her, after all.

Chin up! Stay strong, and - 

“I said shut up,” he says again, getting unsteadily to his feet. _My mother is dead, you bitch, and you are not my mother._

Fuck you.

His eyes widen, and he clutches at his chest, a twisting, painful feeling spreading through it. He plants his feet firmly in the dust, wincing.

“Fuck you too. Fuck you! What the hell do you know about how I feel!? I don’t care how much I fought with her, she was my mother!”

Some mother. A mother who leaves every month? A mother - never mom, of course, too casual - who locks you in your house, alone, for weeks? 

Who abandons you when you need her most? Yeah.

Your mother. Sure.

You forget who’s been by your side all this time. Who has turned arrows from your flesh and kept you from the demon’s eye. Who has loved you as you were never loved.  


You take and take and never give.

He always has. Perhaps it’s simply how he relates to mother figures - with disdain.

“SHUT UP! No, fuck you, I - oh fuck -”

Because he knows that last comment is correct. He treated her with derision. And now he bites at the bit with this one. He doubles over, feeling as though he’s about to vomit. His insides writhe, as though trying to escape.

 _This is different._

Is it? Is it that fucking different? I still take care of you. 

Oh wait, yes it is.

Because I’m a monster.

Well.

We’re all monsters here.

Maybe I’ll just leave then. See how long you stay out from under his eyes.

“Fine. Leave then. Go.”

There is a heavy pause. For a moment, he almost thinks she’s going to leave.

The twisting feeling remains. He laughs, broken and harsh, almost a sob.

We own you.

He laughs harder, coughing up a globule of something black, sticky, and foul.

“You own me? That’s rich. No. You haven’t killed me and you haven’t left me. I know. You need me. And you don’t control me.”

We’ll see.

You have ten minutes.

At once the pressure is gone. He falls to the ground in shock, feeling empty and light, afraid and powerless, and above all utterly alone.

He takes it as it comes, and he even whispers a small _thank you_ to the World-Tree for the gift, however condescendingly and passive-aggressively given.

It is then that he allows himself to mourn. He lets the tears overcome him and he cries for his mother, admitting, at last, that he is only a boy.

 **== > **

\-- tortileGhostwriter [TG] returned from idle. --

  
TT: Dave?   
TG: are you alright   
TT: Yes! Sure. I’m perfectly fine, great, wonderful.  
TT: What do you THINK, David Briar Lalonde?   
TG: theres no need for that kind of tone   
TT: You take it with me often enough.    
TG: a fair rejoinder  
TG: but in this case i am genuinely inquiring as to your well being  
TG: i can infer from your reaction that you remain entirely unwell   
TT: Yes. Yes, I am unwell.   
TG: for what very little it is worth i am sorry   
TT: What do you know, Dave?  
TT: What do you know?  
TT: You didn’t even mourn, did you.   
TG: rose i just disappeared for forty five minutes or so  
TG: and didn’t say a thing  
TG: and right now i am genuinely trying to be honest  
TG: i want you to think about that for a few seconds   
TT: …  
TT: Oh god, Dave, I’m so sorry.   
TG: its alright  
TG: truly it is  
TG: first its good that you are angry  
TG: moving through the stages of grief and all that  
TG: second i completely deserved everything you said   
TT: Oh, no, don’t say that Dave.  
TT: I’m the one at fault here. I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that.   
TG: well while the apology is appreciated  
TG: at this rate were going to be having an apology party  
TG: let us break out the fancy sad hats and shower each other with increasingly elaborate gifts.   
TT: … heeee.   
TG: oh no we cannot possibly have laughter here  
TG: no smiles  
TG: too much death and sorrow  
TG: we are busy making reparations to each other  
TG: break out the treaty papers we are doing some diplomancy   
TT: Okay, you got me, Mr. Doom-And-Gloom.   
TG: if you follow that up with ‘and im still sorry’ i will perform a triple axel off this handle   
TT: Fine. Understood. I’m not sorry in the slightest and you’re a terrible person.  
TT: ;)    
TG: there we go  
TG: david is a hideous human being  
TG: glad were clear there  
TG: okay now back to matters of serious import  
TG: i know that youre sad  
TG: i am too  
TG: seriously  
TG: i am in fact extremely torn up over here and it is taking considerable amounts of willpower to remain composed  
TG: that said  
TG: you still have to focus on the task at hand  
TG: you have to find it  
TG: otherwise what theyve done wont mean a single thing  
TG: we owe them for this   
TT: … okay.  
TT: You’re right, of course.  
TT: Back to the grind. I... we’ll do this properly later, okay? Once we’ve won.   
TG: of course  
TG: you and me and jade and john  
TG: all together   
TT: Of course.   
TG: you might as well get it over with now by the way   
TT: What?   
TG: asking me to change my mind and consider another option.  
TG: david blowing your dreamself up isnt going to solve anything etc etc    
TT: … you know, it’s strange.   
TG: what   
TT: Even here, even knowing... that. I mean. You know.  
TT: Even with that.  
TT: Somehow, right now, I think it’s all going to work out okay.  
TT: I mean, I still question a few of your choices, certainly. And I think it’s going to be very hard, and at this point the best we can expect might be the bittersweet ending...  
TT: … but I can’t help but think that it’s all going to work out somehow.  
TT: So I guess what I’m saying is this:  
TT: I trust you.   
TG: …  
TG: oh   
TT: I’m going to pretend that’s Lalonde-speak for ‘Thanks, Rose, that means a lot to me.’    
TG: yes thats about the long and short of it  
TG: now go do the windy thing   
TT: Sure thing.  
TT: May the winds be at your back.   


\-- talentedThaumaturge [TT] ceased pestering tortileGhostwriter [TG] \--

He takes a deep, shuddering breath. The twisting is within him again, and again the gators skirt his shadow.

He rubs his eyes one last time, then sets out across the sand towards the Gates.

He has a lot of work to do.

**Author's Note:**

> This AU was initially inspired by adamantApoplectic's wonderful AU (available here: https://docs.google.com/View?id=dgv9xcjq_190htvp3xd4&pli=1 ), some fanart done of said AU, and roleplay shenanigans on Livejournal.
> 
> Special thanks to Karijou for help with Rose Egbert's dialog.


End file.
